Eventful

Following a rather quiet eighth round on the top boards of the European Championship, an eventful ninth day of play saw six games from the top ten boards finishing decisively, with only two of the four draws lasting less than 30 moves. Importantly, former sole leader Anton Korobov lost his first game of the event, as he was defeated by 23-year-old Russian grandmaster Alexey Sarana.

Navigating the Ruy Lopez Vol.1-3

The Ruy Lopez is one of the oldest openings which continues to enjoy high popularity from club level to the absolute world top. In this video series, American super GM Fabiano Caruana, talking to IM Oliver Reeh, presents a complete repertoire for White.

Among the twenty-seven players who entered the round on 6/8, a full point behind the leader, five managed to collect wins and climb to shared second place — i.e. Andrey Esipenko, Kirill Shevchenko, David Paravyan, Etienne Bacrot and Valentin Dragnev.

As we pointed out in our round-8 report, reaching 8 points by the end of the 11-round tournament guarantees a spot in the World Cup, while 7½ points are not a guarantee but are likely to also make it into the qualification spots. This means that those who currently stand on 6/9 might feel compelled to play for a win in Sunday’s round, with some of the rating favourites belonging to that group.

Kirill Shevchenko

Current Romanian champion Kirill Shevchenko defeated Vitaliy Bernadskiy in round 9

Standings - Round 9

Rk.	SNo		Name	Typ	sex	FED	Rtg	Pts.	TB1	TB2	TB3	TB4	TB5	K	rtg+/-
1	11	GM	Sarana Alexey				2668	7,5	0	48,5	52	4	6	10	16,9
2	18	GM	Korobov Anton				2658	7	0	49,5	54,5	4	6	10	14,1
3	16	GM	Bacrot Etienne				2659	7	0	47,5	51,5	4	5	10	7,7
4	23	GM	Gledura Benjamin				2637	7	0	46	50	4	5	10	12,4
5	12	GM	Shevchenko Kirill				2668	7	0	45	49,5	4	5	10	8,3
6	8	GM	Esipenko Andrey				2680	7	0	43	47	4	5	10	4,8
7	70	GM	Dragnev Valentin				2561	7	0	42,5	46,5	4	6	10	16,6
8	55	GM	Paravyan David				2584	7	0	41,5	44,5	4	5	10	14,2
9	101	IM	Kourkoulos-Arditis Stamatis				2520	6,5	0	50	53	5	5	10	24,8
10	29	GM	Abasov Nijat				2625	6,5	0	49	52,5	4	4	10	8,2
11	22	GM	Nguyen Thai Dai Van				2651	6,5	0	48,5	52,5	4	4	10	7,6
12	61	GM	Svane Frederik				2577	6,5	0	48	52,5	4	4	10	16
13	17	GM	Grandelius Nils				2658	6,5	0	48	52	5	4	10	3,4
14	20	GM	Santos Latasa Jaime				2655	6,5	0	47,5	52	4	4	10	3,9
	71	GM	Azarov Sergei				2559	6,5	0	47,5	52	4	4	10	20,5
16	117	IM	Subelj Jan				2496	6,5	0	47	51,5	5	4	10	21,9
17	6	GM	Predke Alexandr				2684	6,5	0	47	51,5	4	4	10	3,3
18	9	GM	Gelfand Boris	S50			2674	6,5	0	47	51	5	4	10	6,5
19	56	GM	Kadric Denis				2583	6,5	0	46	50,5	4	5	10	17,9
20	72	GM	Gumularz Szymon				2558	6,5	0	46	50,5	4	4	10	16,3
21	37	GM	Kuzubov Yuriy				2616	6,5	0	45,5	49,5	4	6	10	3,7
22	130	IM	Parkhov Yair				2485	6,5	0	45,5	49	4	5	10	19,7
23	34	GM	Vocaturo Daniele				2619	6,5	0	45	49,5	4	4	10	0,5
24	33	GM	Svane Rasmus				2620	6,5	0	45	49	5	5	10	3,8
25	93	GM	Guliyev Namig				2528	6,5	0	43,5	47,5	4	5	10	12

...484 players

All available games - Round 9

Replay games from all rounds on Live.ChessBase.com

Links

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Topics: Alexey Sarana, European Championship 2023

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Carlos Alberto Colodro Carlos Colodro is a Hispanic Philologist from Bolivia. He works as a freelance translator and writer since 2012. A lot of his work is done in chess-related texts, as the game is one of his biggest interests, along with literature and music.

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